


When The Wolf Comes Home

by RedNightingale



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mutual Pining, Symbiotes - Freeform, Urban Fantasy, Werewolves, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21859120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedNightingale/pseuds/RedNightingale
Summary: The average boy-meets-boy gets a lot more convoluted when you're a werewolf and your wolf tries to let the cat out of the bag ahead of schedule
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 12
Kudos: 110
Collections: Reaper76 Free For All Secret Santa 2019





	When The Wolf Comes Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [airafleeza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/airafleeza/gifts).



> I loved both prompts equally, so I tried to put a bit of both into the story! Hope you like it <3
> 
> “There's going to come a day when you feel better  
> You'll rise up free and easy on that day  
> And float from branch to branch,  
> Lighter than the air  
> Just when that day is coming  
> Who can say,  
> Who can say?
> 
> Our mother has been absent  
> Ever since we founded Rome  
> But there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home.”  
> \- The Mountain Goats

**-I-**

There were a lot of ways their first interaction could have gone. Because —much as it embarrassed Jack to admit it— he _had_ thought about it. More than he should, probably. He was well aware of that.

Back home, he had the fields: open expanses of land through which to spend the nights roaming, running free in his wolf form before shifting back to human in the morning. The dirt on his paws, the smell of fresh air, the moon and the vast blackness of the night sky above him. Wind hitting his face and curling around his fur, raindrops against his skin. The thrill of the chase, the hunt for fresh meat, adrenalin pumping through his veins as he followed the trail of his prey. The pleasant soreness of his muscles as he ran.

Now —essentially trapped in a city made of asphalt and concrete—, he had nowhere to go as a wolf. There were woods nearby, a two-hour drive, but he rarely had a free weekend to spare on a trip there.

All the excess energy itched on his skin, desperate for release, static electricity charging his every move hoping for an out. Running in the park took the edge off, even as it left him unsatisfied: he had to keep his human form, and had to maintain an unassuming pace that was nowhere near his limit. The endless laps around the same path felt like pacing his own cage, dull and repetitive, rarely managing to take his mind off completely; having to pull the brakes on himself made him feel antsy and on edge. It only got worse the closer the nights came to full moon —his body, already increasing its metabolism, yearned for a release that simply did not come. His sex drive skyrocketed too, which —single and in the middle of a dry spell as he was— absolutely did not help his quest to tire himself out. He jogged in the early morning and in the evenings; sometimes in the middle of the night too, if the pent-up energy didn’t allow for sleep to come.

That’s how he’d met him.

He wished it was under other circumstances, definitely. Had it been at a club, a bar, through a mutual group of friends, he’d have definitely surrendered to that magnetic pull that the man seemed to irradiate. He’d have found a way to strike up a conversation, flirt with him like he so desperately wanted to, and hopefully end the night with those thick thighs around his neck as he blew the man into next Sunday. _Christ,_ he needed to get laid.

As it was, with only so many people willing to get up in the asscrack of dawn to get to the park, they recognized each other as a regular with a short nod when their paths crossed, but nothing more. Jack recognized him the moment he stepped into the park: it surely didn’t help that the stranger was devastatingly handsome —sharp and mysterious, with sharp cheekbones scattered with old scars and hazel eyes that seemed to see right through him— but even without Jack’s finer eyes allowing him to hone in on his features from afar, the man himself was pretty hard to miss; the black hoodie and beanie being a dead giveaway, as were the two big balls of fluff running around him. They’d never spoken to each other, much as Jack wanted: the stranger minded his own business —and regretfully, so did Jack. He barely spared a few words with his dogs either, smoking silently as he played fetch with them before leaving, long before Jack finished his morning run.

He'd have forgotten about him, were it not for the short glances the man kept stealing. Jack had seen the way he looked at him when he thought he didn’t notice, the minute dilation of his pupils whenever Jack came close by, the way he seemed to linger a bit too long at the end —as if waiting for Jack to finish, as if hoping they’d cross the gates together— the faint smell of interest jumping that blurry line between real and Jack’s projecting his own lust. It made Jack’s skin itch, every predator instinct screaming at him to take the chance, all his spare energy laser-focused on the man’s every move, hints that the attraction was reciprocal adding on to a pile that haunted him at night.

But it seemed their paths were doomed to never cross, forever caught in each other’s orbits, circling around each other but never getting closer, in an electrically charged song-and-dance that was fraying the thin cords of Jack’s sanity.

Until, one Monday morning, Jack found himself ass up and with his face against the mud.

It happened all of a sudden, his fight-or-flight instincts kicking a bit too late. He heard angry barking around him, some moving blur on the periphery of his vision as he lifted his face from the ground. His nose hurt, but nothing too unbearable: his arms had taken the blunt of the fall as they crashed against the dirt, wet and muddy from yesterday’s rain. He dug his claws —oh _fuck—_ on the mud, hiding them as he tried to prevent his body from fully transforming. The surprise, more than the fall itself, had seemed to trigger his fight-or-flight instincts, the adrenalin spike kickstarting the transformation on its own accord. His heart was beating wildly, blood flowing through his limbs in preparation for the shift in morphology, ready to jump as soon as the wolf was formed. The instincts were strong, but his will was stronger: he forced his breath to even, focusing on the position and feeling on his —human, human, _human_ — limbs, remembering what hands were supposed to feel like, before anyone could see.

His brain began catching up with what had happened: one of the man’s dogs had tried to cross his path and he’d tripped over himself to avoid crashing against him. They were spooked and ready to fight, he could tell as much from the angry barks and the stench of fear and aggression in the air. The pheromones already clinging to his skin must’ve tipped them off on his secret. His neighbor’s cat had also arched her back and hissed at him when he was walking down the stairs, but she had always been judgmental piece of, so he didn’t read too much into it. In retrospect, running near animals so close to a full moon hadn’t been the best of ideas.

“Hades! What the _fuck_ , dude?” Jack looked up to see the handsome stranger extend a hand to help him get back up. “Hey, you alright?” He tried to move his hands, trying to decide whether they were still claw-like without having to look.

He leveled a calming gaze at the still-frightened dogs. Whether it was that, or the stranger’s own stern eyes, they finally calmed down and sat beside their owner, no longer outright aggressive but still vigilant, wary of the wolf they could no doubt smell in him.

From this close, the man was even more stunning: from the stubble that framed his jawline to the small expanse of skin that could be seen through the opening on the hoodie. A gush of wind carried his rich scent, Jack’s nose zeroing in on the notes of his aftershave, the sweat, and below it all the rich musk that was decidedly _his_. He felt his knees going weak —the man looked, and smelled, good enough to eat. His libido came back with a vengeance, and even when he was old enough to keep it under control, he could feel the telltale signs of arousal clouding his mind. It had been far too long since it’d hit him this hard, though. Christ. This moon cycle was definitely making a number on him.

He got up on his own, cleaning his muddy hands on his running shorts as he tried to chase away the traitorous thoughts. “I’m okay.”

“Listen, I-” the man ran his fingers through his hair under the beanie, “I don’t know what happened. They never get like this with strangers,” he explained. As if on cue, the white Labrador growled menacingly. Understandable: Jack, too, would’ve been territorial and protective of that man, albeit for entirely different reasons. If that man was his mate, he’d be rubbing against him to get his scent all over his skin and let everyone know _who_ he belonged to…

_Get your head out of the gutter, Jack._

“It’s nothing, really.” He was moderately sure he had scraped his knee, but nothing that wouldn’t heal in a day or two. He still couldn’t get past the man’s scent, deep and enticing. His nostrils flared on their own, trying to catch more of it. He sank his nails discreetly against the meat of his forearm to get a grip on himself.

“You sure?” They stared at each other in silence. Fortunately, it was still dark enough to hide the way Jack’s pupils were blown wide, but it didn’t run past him the way the man’s eyes couldn’t seem to quite settle on his face. Jack was preening under the attention, using the waistband of his shirt to clean the sweat off his forehead and relishing in the way the man’s eyes widened with the sight of his happy trail. He looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it every time. “I’ve seen you come here every day,” he finally managed. Jack’s heart skipped a beat at the admission that he, too, had noticed him. Stupid at that was. He needed to get over this dumb crush on someone he’d barely met. “I’ve always been meaning to ask…how’s it? Doesn’t it get too cold?”

Jack shrugged; a bit taken aback. His temperature ran a little higher than normal humans, so there was no telling how it’d be for him. “Eh, not too bad. Besides, you warm up pretty easily. I like it.” Jack enjoyed the cold wind against his faces, the pinpricks of white-hot pain on chilly mornings, the rain against his skin. The man, however, was nowhere to be seen on rainy days, and as soon as winter came, he put on layer after layer of coats.

“I hit the gym for cardio, but it gets boring,” he explained. “I was looking for a challenge.” His voice dropped an octave, sending a pleasant shiver down Jack’s spine. There was an undeniable current going through them, and he stepped closer on instinct.

“Well, I’m a challenge alright.”

“I can tell.” The man was giving him a subtle once-over —that still didn’t go unnoticed— and smiling to himself in a way that betrayed that he wasn’t thinking about running at all. Jack had to bite his lip to cut back a response about what other kind of exercise they could be doing. “Guess I can always take the guys to the park a little later. Same time tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“Gabriel.” He smiled at Jack for the first time, and it went right to Jack’s heart.

“Jack.”

***

Sure enough, Gabriel was there the next morning. He’d left the dogs at home, and ditched his usual attire for basketball shorts and a compression shirt that left very little to the imagination regarding his physique. The cloth struggled to cover his wide shoulders, stretching against the muscly arms and powerful torso in a way that made Jack wish he was a shirt. He was taking the last drags of his cigarette, the cloud of greyish smoke stark against the morning sky, when he spotted Jack and threw the butt to the ground, stepping on it with the sole of his shoe. He looked like a vision, a daydream, everything Jack had ever wanted and then some.

“That’s bad for cardio,” Jack said, in lieu of a greeting.

“Who are you, my doctor?” His tone lacked any bite, though, so Jack smiled at the jab. “I still owe you a coffee. For yesterday.”

Jack struggled to remember what Gabriel was talking about. The accident had faded into the back of his mind, overshadowed by the conversation that came after. The prospect of a date with him was making his heart beat frantically, though. “If you win, I’ll let you buy me coffee,” he said instead.

“And if I lose?” He asked that, yet his tone betrayed that he was pretty sure that would not happen. Jack was fast, though —faster still as a wolf, however that was regretfully not an option. What he wouldn’t give to wipe that stupid smug smirk off his face, though. With his own mouth, preferably.

“You have to come again tomorrow.”

“I was going to, either way.”

“I don’t know. You seem like a sore loser”

Gabriel didn’t answer. He started running, instead, and he got a bit of a head start before Jack finally reacted and chased after him. Gabriel’s laugh filled the empty air, warm and bubbly. Jack found himself grinning, despite his annoyance.

Having someone to run with left a warm, tingling sensation in his chest. When he was a pup, he used to go out with his siblings, chasing each other and playing under their parent’s vigilance. Having Gabriel by his side, passing him only to be passed by him again, was like finding something he didn’t even remember losing. He was good, too —not as good as Jack at peak capacity, but could still give him a run for his money under normal circumstances. Jack yearned to switch and run with him in his animal form, much as he knew that wasn’t possible. Gabriel seemed to be enjoying himself, too. At least the first laps.

“Fuck, give me a minute.” He leant forward, hands on his thighs as he struggled to regain his breathing. His shirt was soaking wet, face wonderfully flushed. Jack was openly staring by then, caught up in the way his back tensed as he rested his head against the tree, those deliciously plush lips half-open and eyes screwed shut in an expression reminiscent of the things Jack would very much rather be doing. It was still a good four days until full moon, but those breathy words were fueling his libido on their own. Jack had to focus to keep his thoughts at bay.

“Tired already?”

“You’re good. Shit.”

“I can be better,” he taunted. “You’ve lost, anyway.”

“Guess I’ll have to come back tomorrow, then."

* * *

**-II-**

That moon cycle had hit him like a truck. Same as the next. And the one after that.

Jogging with Gabriel, fun as it was, left him mostly unsatisfied. The races did just enough to activate his muscles and cause a spike in his metabolism, yet not enough to entirely tire him out. He’d always end up more amped up and restless than before, legs itching for another round even as his jogging partner was about to drop to cough a lung out. The man joked about him being insatiable —and him uttering those words while sweaty and breathless should be downright illegal. There was that, too: Gabriel looking absolutely wrecked did not help Jack’s already raging libido, and neither did the sexual tension steadily developing between the two, adding up to a building pressure that made sleep more and more elusive with each day that passed.

Thankfully, the night of the full moon fell on a Friday, so he managed to whisk away the time for a trip to the cabin in the woods to spend the shift outdoors —and hopefully tire himself out enough that he’d sleep through the whole month. Angela had asked to come with him: something about the moon affecting the properties of a certain herb she needed for a spell, the details shrugged away as she often did with all those things she did not expect him to understand. Jack did not press on it, even as he was often the one in the receiving end of the potions and the one to suffer their ill effects, were they not prepared correctly. A half-muttered dismissal was often given in lieu of a real explanation, often enough that he had simply stopped bothering.

Her eyes were cold as she entered the car and made herself comfortable on the driver seat. They’d usually turn on the radio and ease into the familiarity of the well-traveled road, but this time she didn’t make a move to turn it on, and neither did he. She spent the drive there in silence, stealing glances from the road to watch his leg bounce, in the verge of saying something but never quite taking that leap. Not that she needed to say it out loud, anyway —it was present in the way the directions were slippery and faded in his mind, the way he fumbled with the once-familiar buttons in her car.

They’d been to the woods together before. The cabin was hers, actually, a place to stay at when she needed to stock up. Jack had begun to tag along when the city became unbearable, itchy for the release of a place where a wild animal would not raise questions. She’d began shifting her trips to match the moon cycle, not shortly after, and they eventually reached that mutually beneficial point in which they both got what they wanted without having to go through it alone. Not like Jack was good company, anyway— he would spend most of his time in his wolf form, roaming through the mountains at a pace Angela was unable (or unwilling) to follow, and what little time he spent in the cabins was wasted on the deep sleep needed to make up for the night, catching up on all the bone-deep tiredness that always came with full moons. She was busy, too, tending to her own craft, and barely spared a word even as they went into the forest together.

It was comforting, however, traveling together. In a way. It almost made it seem like a friendly outing, some friendly hiking trip, instead of a last-ditch attempt for them both to reconcile with their non-human selves. Or, at least, Jack saw it that way. He’d have thought it was the same for her, but… she’d always been a mystery.

Angela had been going alone lately. Her research didn’t allow for much free time: it had never, taking up all her waking hours and scratching a couple off the time reserved for sleeping, eating, and other physiological needs reserved for mere mortals. Jack did not remember a time in which her friend hadn’t been sleep-deprived. It pooled under her eyes in the worst days —in the best, she merely hid the marks well. When Jack had smelled the forest in her skin, he’d been taken aback, more surprised about the fact that she’d managed to squeeze the time for it than about her not asking him to come with. He’d have shrugged it off, were it any other hint: the notes, however, were unmistakable for a nose as trained as his.

They stepped out of the car. Jack took a deep breath, taking in the familiar-yet-alien scent of grass and rain. This was not his territory, and it told him as much: some of the notes were jarring, out of place, and many others were missing. Still, at least he would manage to stretch a little. His pupils blew wide, adjusting from the light of the car to the near-darkness of the woods at sunset. His toes were already itching to convert, body ready to release a month’s worth of pent-up frustration. He reached to untie his shoes, welcoming the feeling the wet grass under his naked feet.

“You should come here more often,” she said. Angela, too, seemed more at ease: the wind ruffled her blond hair, and even as her eyes remained sharp and clinical the soft smile betrayed how much she’d missed this. It must’ve been jarring for her too, Jack thought distantly. He’d never asked about her connection with her powers, but they had seemed too different for them to have that feeling in common.

“It’s not that easy.”

“ _You_ could move here.” The inflexion on the first word of the sentence did not go unnoticed.

It was not that easy, either, but he wouldn’t expect her to understand. Witchcraft was, in the end, a solitary job. For her, not being in permanent contact was only a practical matter: choosing this life would inevitably mean ditching her professional life, and vice-versa. Subjecting herself to the time apart was purely utilitarian. For Jack, it was a lot more complicated: wolves traveled in pack, so moving in on his own would do little more good than ditching his wolf form altogether. Things could probably change, if he found a mate, but a lifetime of solitude in the woods held little appeal with things as they were.

He unloaded their stuff from the car as she went to the back to turn on the generator. If it had been turned off since the last time they were here, it would still take some time for the room to heat into a comfortable temperature. The door creaked open when he unlocked it with the key. It was dark and cold inside, enough that it made him shiver. He took off his jacket and shoes, leaving the jacket on the hanger, and the rest of the clothes on a neat pile by the door.

“You sure you will be fine? A storm is going to break soon.” The sky was cloudy, but not grey. He knew better than to question, however.

“Yes.”

Not like he’d have a chance, in any case: shifts were usually voluntary and controllable, but full moon had a strength he wouldn’t have been able to counter no matter how hard he tried. Spending the night as a wolf was not a choice but an obligation, this once, and the prospect of spending it curled up in the sofa as a house dog defeated the whole point of coming here in the first place.

She went upstairs, carrying her belongings, and Jack took the chance to finish getting undressed before finally allowing his body to shift. A pleasant burn enveloped his muscles as his morphology changed, the familiar stretch of an exercise long forgotten, and by the time he opened his eyes again he was staring at the door from a lower perspective. He opened the ajar door by pushing with his snout, and stepped outside.

He needed to take a moment to readjust his worldview and accustom himself to filter reality by different standards: his sense of smell had sharpened, making the onslaught of scents from outside overwhelming, and he had to force himself to rely less on sight and touch, to adjust to the new perspective of his head being two feet above ground, to moving on four legs instead of on two, to not being able to use tools with his hands. It really had been a long time, he mourned. He held on to the doorknob with his mouth and walked backwards to close it.

Angela had been right: the wind carried the smell of an oncoming storm. The thick coat of grey fur would do more than enough to protect him from the cold, but rain was not a pleasant affair —it would stick to his every hair, clinging to him long after the storm had passed, and he would have to be careful to remember drying himself off before entering the bed. He stared up at the sky. The sun had not completely disappeared yet, and thus the moon was still not fully visible. He still had a few moments of lucidity before the animal brain would completely take over.

He prowled around the outskirts of the cabin, ensuring no other predators were around while enjoying his newfound freedom.

Strangely enough, he found himself thinking of Gabriel. From what he had gathered by their small talk during their morning routine, he was a city boy through and through: even after moving from L.A to a much smaller city, he hadn’t so much as stepped into a non-paved road. It would be hard convincing him to agree to a hiking trip here, he thought. It would be fun, though; that way, he’d be able to shift without arising suspicions and make the all-bets-are-off, unhinged race he was itching to make. He always complained about how it seemed Jack never broke a sweat even as he was about to pass out: that way, even if the result was somehow predictable, he’d get to see him about as tired as Gabriel. Perhaps Angela would lend them the cabin, so they did not have to sleep outdoors: he didn’t seem the type to enjoy a night under the flimsy cover of a tent.

His thoughts screeched to a halt.

He knew he had it bad for the man. That much was clear from the way his hormones spiked, how his body reacted to the sight or smell of him, how he seemed to occupy every single dream that left him hard and aching and unsatisfied in the morning. That Gabriel was also interested was a thinly-veiled secret, too: if not for the shameless flirting, for the unmistakable smell of arousal that clouded Jack’s senses. Neither seemed in any rush to the finish line, but it was clear where the road led. He’d hoped, distantly, that their little tug-of-war would eventually give yield to a night or two, or a friends-with-benefits kind of arrangement.

Finding himself yearning for more and planning further ahead was, although unsurprising, not pleasant. He did not know where those thoughts of domesticity and romance had stemmed from, but they felt natural enough for him to recognize them as slow-brewed and not merely a spur of the moment idea.

He tried to shrug the man off his mind. It was doomed to fail, in any case: Jack’s former boyfriends had loved only half of him —the half that looked human, the half they could understand and accept— and he was getting old to be living off scrapes. He wouldn’t expect Gabriel to understand this, either. Not even Angela did, and she was the closest to the preternatural a purebred human could get. Pursuing anything was merely setting himself up to a disappointment: the rationality of the thinking did not, however, make it hurt any less.

The clouds uncovered the moon, high and in full view. It reflected on Jack’s blue eyes, staring deep into his brain. He felt the last remnants of human consciousness fade away, and welcomed the drift.

***

The mud made a soft, wet sound when he walked. Branches creaked as they broke when he stepped on them. The wind carried the sound of the wildlife around, and his ears shot up in alert. Birds, insects. Nothing of interest. He continued his prowl.

He came by a pack of wolves. _Real_ wolves, his instinct supplied: they smelt to weird to be anything but. They seemed to recognize him as alien, too, because they simply gave him a wide berth before continuing their hunt. He watched them go.

He ran at top speed, just to prove himself he still could. Traveling upwind, his nose caught the scent of fresh game. He turned around, expecting orders from his pack, but none came. He found himself alone. He followed the trail to a clear where a moose slept. He assessed his chances, but retreated. His belly was full: no need for the hunt tonight.

Shame.

Above, the moon called to him, and he found himself responding. It started to rain. The drops hit his skin and clung onto the fur.

He continued pacing. The night was still young.

***

Sunrise found Jack by the door of the cabin, cold and shivering from inactivity. He blinked his eyes open, only to find himself still in wolf form. All the better, he thought: having to bear the cold of outside while buck naked had never been a pleasant experience, and raised more than a few questions. He looked up; by the angle of the sun, it was still about 6AM. He could stretch the trip further, but decided against it: he felt exhausted, cold and wet, and the prospect of still having to roam for some hours more made him feel miserable. He had no recollection of what had happened during the night, but it must’ve been physically exhausting. _At last_.

Angela had left the door ajar. He pawed it open and stepped inside, welcoming the heat and coziness. The place smelt differently, added floral notes to the already-familiar scent of the cabin. Angela must’ve collected that plant, after all. He could hear her soft breathing in the bedroom, so he relaxed and prepared himself for sleep.

He bypassed the clothes still by the door and went right into the guest bedroom. He was still dripping wet, but the tiredness far outweighed his need for comfort and he didn’t bother checking the bathroom. There was a towel on the floor by the bed, however. It must’ve been her making. He dried himself as best as he could, considering he only had his mouth to aid him in holding the cloth, and jumped into the bed.

He had hoped the full moon would clean the thoughts away, but as he closed his eyes he still found himself thinking about Gabriel, picking up right where he’d left off. Recalling his face in his mind sent a tingling warmth down his stomach that he did not welcome. He sighed. Everything always had to be so difficult, with feelings being added into the mix.

The juxtaposition of his wolf form —dirty with mud and leaves, primal— and the pristine bed all but cemented his decision to simply let the feelings go. It was doomed to fail, in the end. They were simply too different. The crush would pass like a nasty fever, given enough time.

He allowed himself to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

**-III-**

Exhaustion still followed Jack for a few days more.

He’d slept through the Saturday, dead to the world. Most of Sunday was spent in a haze, too, either dozing off in the car or stuffing his mouth with hamburgers in the road diner while Angela drummed her fingers on the table and stared with a raised eyebrow, her own meal long since eaten as Jack was halfway through his fourth order. She looked happy, though, which was an improvement. More relaxed, at least. The trip had done her good. She was right, definitely: he’d been cutting these trips in hopes that soldiering through the cycles would magically make them bearable, but that was hardly the case. He felt calmer than he’d been in ages, the pleasant soreness in his muscles a comforting weight as he stepped out of the car to get back to his apartment.

He slept through his alarm the following morning, and lingered in bed when he did wake up —reveling in the fact that he’d gotten not one, but _two_ consecutive nights of uninterrupted sleep. The newfound rest left the mist of laziness in him, curling around like tendrils of smoke, making him reluctant to wake up. He put on the workout clothes more out of habit than necessity, stepping out of the house a good hour after he usually would: it was still two hours until the shop would open, anyway. He felt good, centered in a way he hadn’t been in a long time.

He didn’t even realize he’d forgotten about Gabriel.

He was there, though: dressed back in jeans and a hoodie, playing fetch with the dogs. He seemed not to have noticed Jack crossing the gates. Jack stared at him from afar, assessing his options: he could always make this a clean cut, and simply find another place to exercise in; it seemed like the best outcome, considering how muddled his feelings were getting and the place it inevitably would lead them both into. That choice was taken out of his hands, however, when the man turned around. He didn’t make any movement to signal he’d seen him, but it was pretty clear in the way his eyes widened, like he had not expected him there. Jack walked closer to him. The dogs stared at him suspiciously, but did not make a move.

“Hey.”

“You were missing for a couple days, thought you wouldn’t come,” Gabriel explained. “I didn’t put on my running gear.”

“It’s okay. I’ve been—” Jack struggled to find a good enough approximation, “I’ve been out, these days. Hiking trip. And then I got sick.”

Gabriel took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one up. “Sorry. Didn’t know. I had no way to contact you, anyway.”

His gaze lingered there. Despite being exhausted —both physically and mentally— he could feel the distant spark of excitement in his stomach as their eyes met. Now that his metabolism wasn’t making his hormones go haywire, all that was left was the giddy, untimely crush, which apparently would simply not go away no matter how much Jack willed to crash it. He knew he should quit while he was still ahead.

“Let me give you my number. For next time,” he said, instead, because he was a disaster.

Gabriel pulled out his cellphone. Their fingers brushed as he handed it to him, and Jack could swear he felt electricity when their skin touched. The soft breeze carried his scent, which still felt every bit as delicious as before, albeit a little less urging. He leant into him, taking more in. He typed his numbers and saved into his contacts, trying not to read too much into the way his fingers still tingled where Gabriel had touched them.

“So, you’re gonna do your exercise today?”

Jack considered it for a moment, then shook his head. “Nah. I’m still a bit under the weather.” The tiredness should at least last him a couple more days, if he was lucky. Perhaps a bit more, if he allowed himself to shift at home too.

“Let me get you breakfast today, then.”

The hopeful look in Gabriel’s eyes made him hesitate.

“Sure,” he said instead, like a disaster.

Gabriel smiled, and it went right through his heart. The man crouched and called for the dogs, which came fast but ran just as quick when he was about to put them on a leash. The dogs seemed to be very amused by making their owner angry, and so did Jack if he was being honest. Gabriel seemed to be the only one getting annoyed by the whole ordeal, and even he had a small smile on his face.

“There’s a bakery not far from here,” he explained.

They sat in the tables by the patio. The dogs, who seemed to pay no mind to Jack even in close quarters, hid under the table when the waitress came to get their orders. They had apparently forgotten about him being a threat: either they were already accustomed to his smell by how it seeped into Gabriel’s clothes from their fleeting touches —and man, did _that_ awaken some nasty, primal feelings of possessiveness— or the pheromones had gone away with the moon cycle as his increased metabolism had.

“So,” Gabriel began, “big fan of hiking?”

Jack shrugged. “You could say so.”

“Didn’t peg you as the type. You look more like a farmboy than a lumberjack.”

“I am,” Jack smiled. “You can take a boy out of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy, I guess.”

Gabriel took a sip of his drink, which seemed to have more whipped cream than coffee. “What’s a guy like you doing in a city like this, though?”

Jack tensed, but he hoped he’d recovered fast enough to not let it show. “I work at an antique shop. Old books, historical objects, all that.” The man hummed, smiling to himself. He really had no right to be that handsome. “You?”

“Private security,” Gabriel began, but seemed taken aback by his own words. “Well, at least I did. Had to quit my job, a while back. I’m job hopping, still.”

“Stressful job?” Jack ventured.

“You could say so.” His gaze lowered. _Sore subject._ He took a bite of his pastry. That seemed to catch the attention of the Lab, who sit up next to his knee. “No. This is not for doggies.”

Jack smiled, despite himself. He regretted not getting anything to eat: Gabriel sure seemed to be enjoying his. “Explains your good shape,” he commented

Gabriel barked a laugh. “You kidding? You hand me my ass on a plate every day.”

“I’m…” he began, but caught himself on time, “different.”

Gabriel laughed again. “No need to coddle my ego, man. Unless you’re actually Captain America… which wouldn’t surprise me, by the way, I think I can stand the truth.”

***

**Unsaved number**

_So you have my number too_

**Unsaved number**

_Gabriel, btw_

Jack padded across the living room to the kitchen, where the phone had been charging. He put his front paws on the wooden table, standing on his hind legs to see the screen. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the notifications. He left them unanswered, trying his hardest to push them to the back of his mind. Still, 5 minutes later he was already changed back to human form, lifting the cellphone with trembling fingers.

**Jack**

_Hi :)_

He stared at the screen, unblinking. He knew he should force himself to look away, to let it be and not look much into it. Still, he couldn’t tear his eyes away until the ‘read’ caption appeared next to the message, and three blinking dots signaled Gabriel was answering.

**Gabriel**

 **** _Same time tomorrow, right?_

**Jack**

 **** _Sure_

***

He came back to himself staring at an apartment block from a back alley.

Jack did not have to look down to know he was going to find paws instead of feet: the perspective was low enough, from the way his neck craned to see the only lit window in the building, for it to be impossible from two legs. He heard footsteps, so he hid behind a trashcan: hopefully, whoever was walking through the street at this time of the night was drunk enough or distracted enough to confuse him with a stray dog, or simply not see him altogether. He stood quietly, unmoving, until they receded enough to be out of sight.

The change in position allowed him to clear his head and try to recall how he ended up in that alley. He did not remember walking there, but he must have —there were no shreds of clothes around him, so he must’ve shifted before coming. It was likely that he’d made the whole journey as a wolf. He did not remember getting out of the house, either. He’d fallen asleep as a human with no intentions of waking up until the following morning, and he was pretty sure he’d locked the door beforehand. That detail seemed a bit fuzzy, though: perhaps he’d forgotten, this once, and that had allowed his wolf form to open it, since the keys were usually left out of its reach for precisely that reason. Thing was, he didn’t remember shifting either: at least not after he’d answered Gabriel’s message and changed back into a human. After that, he had simply taken a shower and gone to bed, like he usually did. Yet here he was, appearing as a wolf in the middle of the city, stalking some guy’s house.

A gush of breeze hit him, upwind from the building he’d been staring at. His nose moved as he sniffed, taking in the scent that had brought him there. Gabriel’s, of course.

_Christ._

Now that he knew what he was looking for, there was no avoiding it: the notes of his aftershave, the musky scent of him, the subtle hints of the two dogs that clung into his skin from the contact. He was everywhere: if he put his nose to the ground, he was sure he’d find that the trail led to that building, right up to his door. He did not know where he was, but the neighborhood seemed unfamiliar: he was sure he’d never been to this part of town. How he’d found the trail from _that_ far was something that astounded him. He retreated more into the alley, unwilling to stare anymore.

The last time this had happened, he’d been a teenager. His wolf form had just awakened, barely in his third or fourth shift when he’d found himself several miles from home, staring at one of his High School friend’s house from a hill. He’d came to his senses right before coming closer, just staring from afar, and with the exact mix of confusion and shame. Much like now, he didn’t remember shifting, or moving there. He hadn’t known what had hit him, then, and as soon as he’d found his way home he’d asked his father —the alpha of his pack, back then— for an explanation. He’d been scared, that he’d lost control so easily, that he could’ve hurt someone on the way there. That he would’ve hurt his friend, if he’d entered his house before snapping out of it. That there might come a day where he _wouldn’t_ snap out of it. His father had laughed, ruffling his head, and joked about his boy growing up. He was still laughing about it several days after. Apparently, he found it really amusing, that Jack would be so head over heels over someone that his wolf had picked up on it and treated their scent like the path to follow on its way _home_.

Jack hadn’t found it funny, back then, and he certainly didn’t now.

If he had been mortified already as a teen, doing so now disgusted him. He was an _adult_ , for fuck’s sake. He should be able to control himself. And he should be able to control these feelings, no matter what the wolf, the spirits, or whoever-the-fuck thought on the matter.

He needed to get back home. Doing so as a wolf was risky and bound to arise suspicions, but he had no clothes in hand, and seeing a naked man walking through would elicit just as many phone calls to the police, if not more. He _could_ ask Gabriel for help, he thought, but quickly discarded the thought: either appearing as a wolf or as a man would be creepy, especially taking into account that the man had never given him his address. “I trailed your scent from home” didn’t seem like a good enough excuse.

He settled for an awkward walk of shame back to his own apartment, trying to move swiftly to prevent himself from making sounds. Fortunately, it was a weekday, and far enough into the night that most bars were closed, so he encountered few people. He heard their steps and sensed their smell in advance, allowing him to shrink into the shadows to avoid being seen. He was surprised at how easy it was: he would’ve thought that, in a city, he was bound to get spotted. It was risky, of course, but feasible. Perhaps he could do this again sometime to let some steam off. Hopefully, wholly consciously, and not on a sleepwalking stumble. It was a miracle no one had seen him on his way here, and that he’d awakened in that alley and not in a cell in Pest Control. _Fuck_. What an idiotic, risky thing.

He entered his own building through the fire escape, leaping into the half-opened bedroom window. He landed right in his bed, where his pajamas lie shredded. That explained how he’d gotten out: when he shifted back into a human, he closed it shut, checking the door was locked too for good measure. One sleepwalking per night was already too much.

He felt tired, but sleep was elusive: whether for the trip having awakened him, or out of fear for him to shift again when he fell asleep. He turned his phone to check the time: it was 4AM, early enough that getting up would be wasting time, but not enough that sleep would be worthwhile. He checked his social media apps, absent-mindedly scrolling through Twitter while an idea festered in his mind. The harder he tried to ignore it, the more it cemented, until he threw the phone to the bedside table with a grunt of frustration, turning around to face the opposite side of the room to try and find sleep once and for all.

He caved in, eventually.

**Jack**

_Angela, I need help_

* * *

**-IV-**

“So, you sleepwalked?”

Angela’s tone was clinical, matter-of-fact. She didn’t seem the least bit affected by what she had heard —in stark contrast to Jack, who had been unable to stop fidgeting with his hands and bouncing his leg ever since the conversation had started. He carded his fingers through his hair, resisting the urge to pull it out of frustration. She laid it out so simple, so irrelevant. It was not like that at all. There just wasn’t a way for her to understand the implications completely.

It had been his idea. He’d been the one who asked for help. He’d made his own bed, and now was time to lie in it. Even when the conversation felt like pulling teeth.

“Yes,” he croaked.

Her living room reminded him distantly of a psychiatrist’s office, with the big sofa in which he was sitting and the smaller seat she was using. He’d never noticed how sparely decorated it was: barely a picture or two, the walls mostly filled with bland paintings of landscapes —pretty, no doubt, but so unlike her that he was sure they were either gifts or part of the previous owner’s furniture— and the few belongings that could be called personal so ordered and in place it felt like sitting in an Ikea catalog. As a matter of fact, the only room that seemed to be lived in was her office, filled with books and manuals of all sizes and ages: witchcraft and medicine clashed harmoniously with each other in an eclectic mix that felt more hers than this room ever would.

“To a man’s house? I don’t follow.”

He sighed. “To _Gabriel’s_ house. I chased his scent from home.” Laying it out in the open lifted a huge weight off his shoulders, but the tenseness seemed to fill the air and make it asphyxiating. “I- I hadn’t done that in a long time,” he finished, voice small.

She was silent for a few moments, considering. Jack took the chance to calm his nerves by taking a sip of the tea she’d made: his fingers were shaky, restless with stress and pent-up energy to get up and _do_ something to fix it, even when he didn’t know what. His instincts were itching for action: he wasn’t made for talking.

“Do you want me to do a reading? Help you discover what that means?”

He barked a humorless laugh. “I _do_ know what it means.” She raised an eyebrow, expectant. “The wolf thinks he’s my mate. He follows the scent because he thinks it leads home.”

“Aww. Cute.” Angela was smiling, heartfelt. That made him blush more than if it had just been sarcastic mockery.

“It’s not cute. It’s embarrassing.” He could feel his ears on fire. It felt like being a teenager all over again: unable to control himself, shifting at awkward moments, having to tell his dad about it and admit he wasn’t grown-up enough, that it was right for him to leave Jack out of pack matters.

“But it’s happened before, right?”

Jack scoffed. “Yeah, once. My first crush. When I still was a pup and didn’t know any better. I grew up. I’ve had boyfriends, and this has never happened with them.”

His wolf had done some stupid shit with his past relationships. He’d followed them like a lost, lovesick puppy around the house, he’d wagged his tail as soon as they were on sight, he’d licked their face and begged for pets like a lapdog. But not this. Never this bad.

“Don’t you think it means something, then?”

 _Absolutely fucking not_. Not if he had a say in the matter, at least. But it seemed that he didn’t have as much say over this than he thought he would, so voicing that out loud would feel pointless. “It better not.” The admission tasted like defeat, sour in his mouth like bile.

She opened her mouth to say something else. He growled. His instincts had been on edge for the whole conversation, picking up on the discomfort of the situation, and on top of having to gut himself open to put the feelings on display he had to keep the wolf at bay. Lest he decided to deal with the psychological assault like a physical one and start breaking havoc on her apartment. He’d already broken more than a few pieces of furniture during his teen years —he wasn’t looking forward to an encore. Keeping himself grounded as a human was taxing, though. He could feel a headache coming, and it looked like a particularly nasty one. She clued in on it, and kept her thoughts to herself. Whatever she was going to say, he already knew anyway.

Angela got up, leaning to get the books that lie on the coffee table with post-its and hand-scribbled notes over them. He opened one of them, retrieving the sheet of paper that was trapped between the pages, skimming through it and the original text to check there weren’t any transcription errors. There didn’t seem to be.

“Listen.” She lifted her gaze from the paper. “There’s spells for what you asked me. They won’t block the shift on a full moon, none are that strong, but they can help you manage when you sleep. I don’t think they’re the answer, though: your wolf is telling you something, and I believe you ought to listen.”

In the back of his mind, he knew it was true. But that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. “The wolf doesn’t know shit.”

She gave him _that_ look, the condescending glare she knew he hated so much. “It’s not a friend’s opinion. It’s a medical opinion. If you keep trapping your wolf —a part of your identity— eventually he will find his own way out, even if it’s by gutting you in the process.” She dropped her voice, almost a whisper. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for what happened to your pack. Sometimes bad things happen, and no one is at fault.”

The words fell like a jar of ice down his back.

“Just give me the blockers, please.” His whole body was tense, his nails biting into the meat of his thigh with how hard he was gripping it. He needed an out from this impromptu therapy session.

She stared at him, again, before getting up to retrieve the ingredients. The disappointment in her eyes burned brighter than the anger he was expecting. He lowered his head to avoid her eyes, but he couldn’t get rid of the shame pooling on his gut.

“As you wish.”

***

The infusion tasted like rotten eggs and napkins.

None of Angela’s ever did: she’d always been somewhat of a rouge. Not only had she memorized the instructions in the books she’d inherited, but she’d also reverse-engineered them, taking out one ingredient at a time, changing the preparation just so, to discover what made them tick. She’d discovered which parts were essential, which merely an addendum, which were added to stop the result from becoming toxic and which to make the user get more bang for their buck. And, of course, which of them were there to get the witch that made them fill their pockets a little more.

Apparently, from what he’d gathered, witches sweetened the more expensive potions with ingredients that only added flavor, to entice the customer into buying again. Most of them, however, were artificially soured, making them taste badly on purpose so the user would not accidentally overdose, or take so much that could potentially become a problem for themselves —or for the witch, if they were still present. Angela had usually stripped away those ingredients: she was the only witch Jack had ever consulted, and with no knowledge of how to make them or find someone else who could, he was dependent on her. Giving him the exact volume he needed for his weight and usage managed the exact same result, saving her from overworking and him from having to be subjected to those terrible tastes.

This time she’d used the whole recipe, it seemed. Either she hadn’t used it before and didn’t know where the artificial sourer was —which he doubted— or she simply did not trust him. He hadn’t exactly given her reason to, anyway.

It took a while to take effect. It was subtle, at first, but about an hour in Jack was really noticing the difference: his sense of smell had almost disappeared, as if he’d caught a nasty cold; his eyesight had worsened, and he felt lethargic and dull. He almost burnt down the apartment trying to cook dinner, since he wasn’t able to smell the smoke as the food burnt, and he tripped over his own furniture several times, unused to having to turn on the lights at night. He had to maneuver through his routine as if blindfolded and drunk. By the time he went into bed, he felt miserable.

His phone buzzed.

**New message from Gabriel**

His heart skipped a beat. Apparently, that hadn’t changed.

He raised an eyebrow, however. They’d been texting non-stop ever since they’d gotten each other’s numbers —sometimes until well into the night, which wasn’t doing Jack’s insomnia any favors— but the last two days (ever since the sleepwalking incident, actually) had been complete radio static. He hadn’t come for their morning jog, either. Jack had been confused, and maybe a little hurt; most of all scared that Gabriel had somehow seen the wolf, recognized him as Jack, and decided to cut contact for it. It was paranoid and far-fetched, Jack knew, but he could not quite shake the feeling that the text was going to be a long and thought-over dismissal that would probably break his heart.

Well. It was for the best, anyway. He unlocked the phone.

> **Gabriel**
> 
> _Sorry, been sick these days._
> 
> _Little tough._
> 
> **Gabriel attached an image!**
> 
> Oh
> 
> _Oh._

He shouldn’t be as ridiculously excited for a badly-taken photo as he is. Yet Gabriel’s selfie still makes him giddy, blockers and sickness and all.

It’s starting to feel like he’s trying to cheat at a game that was already rigged from the start.

**Gabriel**

_Btw, my friends n I are planning a Halloween party at my house._

_Wanna come? I’m pretty excited to see you again, ngl_

Jack was _fucked._

* * *

**-V-**

Jack hadn’t thought to check the lunar calendar. Which, in retrospect, was a huge oversight on his part.

In his defense, the blockers had made most of the tell-tale signs of the incoming full moon—the metabolism, the increase in libido, the restlessness— diminish our outright vanish, to the point that he’d kind of forgotten he should’ve been paying attention to them in the first place. He’d been busy with the shop, with the daily jogs with Gabriel —which, now that he did not have an overwhelming urge to run, had turned into little more than friendly chats—, with trading messages back and forth with him for hours on end, that he’d just kind of forgotten to keep track.

His app, however, did not; it warned him —as it always did— three days in advance, with a pop-up notification that had come up when he woke up. He’d ignored, in the same breath as he pushed the snooze button on the alarm. So it beeped again, more insistently, an hour later.

Which was the way Jack found out that, this year, Halloween fell on a full moon.

Oddly fitting, he thought with a self-deprecating smile. All the preternatural creatures would have a kick this year; if not for an increase in their connection with their powers, at least for the humor of it. Unlike them, however, he’d have to spend his night trapped on the house —sulking and moping around— while his crush and their friends had fun. Christ, how depressing. He wasn’t all that surprising, however: life always had a penchant for throwing him curveballs.

The shop was empty this time of the day: the biggest influx in customers usually came in the afternoons, with the early mornings and the evenings being more of a quiet affair, with a slow trickle of people crossing the door. That, unfortunately, left him with his hands and mind unoccupied, ready to wallow in his current predicament.

He fiddled with the phone in his hands, opening the messaging app. Last message was from Gabriel, of course —he was, apart from Angela and a few friends from back home, the only one to consistently text him, and by far the most prolific. He opened the conversation, a smile tugging on his face no matter how hard he tried to fight it. The last message was a picture of Gabriel’s dogs —Hades and Mors, two Labrador mixes picked up from the same litter, abandoned at the door of the pet rescue where Gabriel had picked them from, he knew everything by heart already— chewing on some black cloth that was probably meant to be part of his costume. He’d told Jack about how he’d liked to sew them on his own, how he tried to pull off a different concept each Halloween, and how excited he was to show Jack this year’s. It only made everything ache more. He closed the tab, unable to find the stomach to tell Gabriel he wouldn’t make it.

Fortunately, the bells rang when a customer entered the shop. That kept him entertained enough for a couple of minutes, pushing the message to the back of his mind.

It came back to him, in and out for the whole morning, half-ideas forming in his mind. By the time he’d closed shop, a plan was already cemented.

***

**Angela**

_Absolutely fucking not_

_That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard_

Jack raised an eyebrow, confused, and hit the ‘call button’.

“What was that about?” He asked, balancing the phone between his face and his shoulder to free his hand while he opened the door to his apartment.

“Full moon is in three days,” she said, as if that explained it. She sounded exasperated.

“Could’ve told me sooner, Angie. It had completely slipped my mind.” He pushed the door open, entering the house.

“I know: if it hadn’t, you would’ve asked me a lot of stupid questions these past weeks, instead of simply going out and doing the stupid, reckless thing all on your own. It won’t last you until Halloween, you know. And I won’t be making you more.”

“I don’t follow.” He left the grocery bags in the kitchen counter, side-eyeing the leftover bottle of the blocking herbs he still had. He winced: she was right. He had only for two more days, tops. 

“These things are dangerous, you know. It’s not a well-used recipe: there’s no way to know where the minimum toxic concentration lies, the size of the therapeutic window, the lethal dose, _if_ it can be lethal at all. It’s nothing short of a miracle that you haven’t experienced side effects.” Oh, he had. He was shivering all the time, his insomnia was worse than ever, and all food tasted like chewing on plastic. He had simply omitted those details in his conversations with her. 

He figured there was no point in denying it further when he’d been caught red-handed, anyway. “I’m willing to risk it.”

“But, as your medical provider, I am not. I won’t let you overdose on wolf inhibitors just because you want to go to a stupid party. Really, Jack. You’re not a teenager anymore. Fuck’s sake.” That was the _second_ time she’d cursed in the duration of this conversation, which was already more than all the swears he’d heard from her in the rest of their conversations combined. She must be pretty pissed.

“What do you want me to do? Show up in a very realistic rendition of the Big Bad Wolf?”

“ _Not_ show up? Really. _Scheiβe._ Are you really that desperate to get laid? Are you really willing to risk some random human’s lives if you go haywire during the party?”

“I—,” he hadn’t thought about that, actually. “I planned to stay at home until past midnight. Until I was sure I could keep a lid on it.” That seemed reasonable. The party started at 10, and while the shift usually took place just after the moon became visible, midnight was when he felt the strongest pull. Waiting until midnight had passed seemed like a good enough window.

“Well, you can’t. Sorry to break it to you, but you’re a werewolf. At night during a full moon, you turn into a wolf. That’s how it goes.”

“Thanks for the information.”

“You’re also a grown man. Maybe it’s time you act like one.”

She was right. Of course she was.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, hanging up.

It seemed to be good enough for Angela too, because she didn’t press more into the matter.

***

“I can’t make it tonight,” is what he texted, three days later. “I feel pretty sick.”

He’d been meaning to tell Gabriel in person, to feel less of a fucking coward. The only thing that prevented him from doing so was the lack of a good enough excuse. He’d already told him he had no other plans, Gabriel knew he wasn’t on speaking terms with his family —curse him and his oversharing— so faking a family emergency was not an option. Which made an illness the only excuse left, and he couldn’t exactly say that in advance.

He knew it was for the best. It still made him feel like shit.

Gabriel had sent him a stream of sad emojis he could’ve really lived without. He briefly considered throwing the phone under the bed and trying to forget about it, but that would’ve made him feel worse. He apologized, again, explaining he’d caught a bad fever —which wouldn’t be _that_ far from the truth— and that he’d need to stay home. He hoped they’d have fun, anyway.

As he typed, from his sofa in the living room, he could see in the direct line of his vision the open door to the kitchen, where the unused two days worth of blockers still laid on the counter. He wouldn’t deny that it crossed his mind again, but he quickly shut it off. Fucking up his health, that he could live with, but endangering unsuspecting humans was a red line. He’d suffer this full moon at home, alone, like a fucking loser, and wake up the next morning and ask Gabriel on a date like a normal, emotionally functional adult.

He just needed to power through the night.

***

**Gabriel**

_Mind if I drop by?_

_I dont feel well partying while ur sick… lemme at least make you dinner_

Fuck. That was so sweet. Sweet and so, so fucking inconvenient. Jack was already in his worst underwear, the one he was thinking about throwing to the trash anyway, ready for a night of solitude, when he had to come in being all sweet. He really should say no, though. He checked the clock: it was still a good three hours until midnight. It was already dark outside, which meant the moon would already be visible, but under a roof it usually took a little bit more for it to take in. Until midnight, he’d be pretty much in the clear.

**Jack**

 **** _Sure_

He was an idiot.

Because _of course_ Gabriel would take more time to arrive than what Jack had expected him to. And _of course_ having been on blockers for the better part of the month was doomed to have a rebound effect. And _of course_ , by the time the door dinged, he was battling with having four pairs of ears and three and a half paws.

Shit.

“It’s me.” He heard through the door. He still adamantly refused to open. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he answered. Just fucking peachy, if you didn’t count the extra pair of ears and the —now only four half-paw half-hands. Yikes.

“Can I come in? I made you soup.” Jack looked from the peephole. He’d brought bags all the way from his home. That was so sweet. His heart would’ve jumped, had it not been halfway through changing its anatomy.

“I’d—,” _I’d rather not,_ is what he meant to say, but his mouth-to-brain filter seemed to be offline every time Gabriel was near. “I’d love to.”

Fuck.

At least his face was still fully human, he thought mournfully as he opened the door. The room was completely dark save for the light that would come from the hallway. Perhaps that could hide the worst of it. Gabriel would give him the food and leave, hopefully. He could make an excuse about it being extremely contagious.

Life, apparently, wouldn’t give it to him that easy.

Because, as soon as Gabriel closed the door behind him, the clock stuck midnight.

He had a last glimpse of jumping to bite him before his consciousness faded and the world went black.

* * *

**-VI-**

Jack awoke in his sofa. Still in half-slumber, prying his eyes open seemed too much of a task. Even with them closed, he could tell he was back in his human form: he could feel his limbs like a man’s; with long, slender arms and legs, hairless, and with fingers he could move. He did not feel cold, however, as was usual after the transformation. A comforting warmth sat on top of his body, a layer of soft cotton that enveloped him. He did not remember having placed the blanket on himself before falling asleep, but it hardly mattered. He was too tired to care, and the cover was more than welcome. Being cocooned in warm softness felt so nice, so comfortable. His eyelids were heavy. Keeping himself conscious was too hard of a task. He turned around, trying to go back to sleep.

His face clashed against something, warm and more unyielding than the sofa pillows. He made a noncommittal grunt of confusion, thrown aback by the change in texture. Hands came to caress his head, and he leaned against the soothing touch on instinct, yearning for more. Fingers carded through his hair in long, soothing motions, a slow rhythm that was tempting him to go back to sleep. It felt nice, so incredibly nice, but the barest hint of an alarm rang in the distance. Something seemed out of place, something that should probably worry him. He snuggled closer. The nagging alarms didn’t stop.

He took the herculean effort to keep his eyes half-open. The only thing he saw was a close-up of black cloth, blurry with the way his eyes kept wanting to flutter shut. The color seemed familiar. He remembered having seen it before, somewhere. Ah, on Gabriel’s t-shirt. That made sense.

Fuck, he’d fallen asleep on his lap.

Distantly, somewhere in the very back of his mind, he knew he should probably be feeling embarrassed about the fact. He knew that he was supposed to panic about Gabriel having found out about his secret. He knew he should be reacting, in some way, that he should be waking up and moving away. But he was exhausted, so bone-deep tired, he couldn’t command the muscles to move. He already felt himself drifting back asleep.

“Go back to sleep, Jack,” Gabriel muttered. Jack really liked his voice, he thought. Deep and sweet, like honey. He wouldn’t mind waking up to it for the rest of his life. Wasn’t that a nice thought, though. Hearing that voice first thing in the morning for the rest of his days. His hands had stopped their caress, however. Jack moved his head minutely, asking for them again. Gabriel chuckled, and did as told.

Jack fell fast asleep again.

He’d deal with it tomorrow.

***

The next time he came back into consciousness, this time completely, he was awoken by the delicious smell of eggs and bacon. His stomach rumbled, complaining about all the energy spent on the night before. He was so hungry he could eat an entire horse, he thought. The sizzling sound of the pan and the smell were already making his mouth water.

He blinked his eyes open, taking in on his surroundings: he was in his own living room, curled up in his sofa. He sat up. Thankfully, nothing seemed out of place —whatever had happened the night before, it hadn’t wrecked the whole apartment, which were uplifting news. He had a blanket thrown on himself —it hadn’t been a dream, after all. He was also, as he had suspected, embarrassingly naked. At least Gabriel was no longer in sight.

What he wouldn’t give to spontaneously combust right then and there.

He padded back to his room, finding a fresh change of clothes. He was still completely drained, and side-eyeing the bed as he rummaged through his wardrobe, he almost leant in on the temptation to fall right back to sleep. He had to pry his mind off the idea, much as it seemed latched on to it, and came back to the kitchen.

Gabriel was cooking, with his back mercifully to the door, so Jack took several seconds to try and regain his wits. The conversation would no doubt be awkward as hell —with the events of yesterday night coming to his mind by pieces and flashes, he was increasingly sure that Gabriel had witnessed _everything_ , and there would be a lot of explaining to do on his part. What he’d dreaded for so long had finally come guns blazing, and it was up to him —as a human— to deal with the fallout. Anxiety pooled deep in his gut. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself, if Gabriel decided he did no longer want to be associated with him.

He’d stayed, though. That had to mean something.

Jack cleared his throat. Gabriel turned around, the frying pan still in his right hand, and then promptly came back to cooking.

“I’m making breakfast,” he explained. “I had to scavenge my way through your kitchen, hope you don’t mind.”

He didn’t. The smell was heavenly. Making food for himself after waking up always made him feel miserable: he was half-tempted to eat the ingredients raw —his instincts still a bit too hardwired on the brain— and having to put off eating only to cook them felt like torture. Honestly, he could’ve kissed Gabriel right then. Or anytime, actually. He just really wanted to kiss him at all times. But especially then. For the food, and all.

“You didn’t have to.”

Gabriel shrugged, still with his back to him. “Figured you’d need something filling.” He’d suspected as much, but outright hearing that Gabriel _knew_ still felt like a jar of ice down his back. “Sit on the table, it’ll be done in a minute.”

So Gabriel knew, and he had mentioned it, which meant he would probably want to talk about it. So much for ignoring the issue.

“You want coffee?” Jack asked, if only to have something to fiddle with instead of sitting and marinating in anxiety.

“Sure. Couldn’t find the machine.”

Jack pulled out the moka pot from the cupboard and reached for the grounded coffee. He filled the bottom chamber with water and the filter with the coffee. Gabriel kept making them breakfast, putting the now-done eggs into a plate. They worked in companionable silence, their shoulders brushing. It was painfully domestic, and knowing their conversation would sever all chances of it becoming a reality made it all the more gutting. He wanted to drag the moment forever, keep it safe in a bubble, but time passed on mercilessly and the water boiled. Gabriel left with the two plates, and he silently mourned the loss of those fleeting points of contact.

“Done,” Jack announced, when the pot gurgled. He turned around to see Gabriel had left the two plates on the table and was already cleaning the pan. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean up later.”

“It’s okay. I’m almost done anyway.”

Jack took out two cups and poured a cup of black coffee —no sugar— for himself. “How do you like yours?”

“Lots of milk, but no sugar.” His hazel eyes were fixated on Jack’s, which made him realize how dark around the edges they were. He had barely slept, if at all. “I’d have asked you how you liked your eggs, but you were still out cold.”

“I like them fried. It’s okay.”

Jack sat on the table in front of Gabriel. The food looked amazing. Maybe if he stuffed his mouth full, they wouldn’t be able to talk, and he’d save himself the embarrassment of being rejected. He was about to take a bite from his plate when Gabriel cut him short.

“I think we need to talk.”

He was suddenly not hungry, anymore.

“I— We do, yeah.”

He took a sip from the coffee, stalling. His leg was restlessly bouncing, bumping into the table with each upstroke. He had a lot of explaining to do, that was for sure. He just didn’t know where to begin. Gabriel, thankfully, spared him and began first.

“Listen, I,” Gabriel carded his fingers through his short, curly hair, “I really like you.” Jack’s heart did a little pitter-patter at that, even when he knew a blew was coming. It was the worst. “You’re amazing, and nice, and I really like being with you. But I…” Gabriel trailed off, avoiding his gaze, “Some things are too weird, or too unsettling, enough that pursuing something more might not seem wise. So I understand if you didn’t want to keep being around me—”

“What?” Jack cut him short. “What are you talking about? _I’m_ the monster, dude. Don’t project your own guilt on me: if you don’t want to date a werewolf, that’s your own damn fault.” It hurt, honestly. More than outright rejection would. “But don’t make it look like _I’m—"_

Gabriel looked genuinely taken aback. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Tendrils of black smoke started curling around his arm, fusing together into a net of blackness that covered his skin, dense and thick. The mass creeped upwards, swallowing his shoulder and neck and snaking under his shirt, until it began covering his face too. A white owlish mask appeared where his face once was. Its eyes opened, Jack noted with no small amount of surprise, and zeroed in on him.

“We are Reaper,” it said. The voice was Gabriel’s, but was also not. Jack stood still, completely frozen with shock.

It vanished as fast as it had appeared. Jack blinked, and Gabriel was there again, staring at him with unbelievable sorrow.

“Now you know,” he sighed. “There’s a monster in this room, and it sure as hell isn’t you.”

Jack’s brain began to catch up. Memories from last night came like flashes, short clips of video that keep replaying over and over: Gabriel entering his house, him shifting in front of him, coming at his neck, Gabriel… Gabriel blocking him, him biting into something hard and unyielding, like Kevlar, Gabriel’s arm black as the night when he made him recede.

Gabriel was— he didn’t know what he is, exactly, but he wasn’t human either.

Jack bursts out laughing hysterically.

He knew, logically, that it wasn’t the best —or most polite, taking into account Gabriel was baring himself there— reaction, but he couldn’t seem to stop. It was like a dam had been opened, all the months of frustration escaping out of him in hysterical laughter. Gabriel just stared, confusion and disbelief plastered on his face, and that made him laugh more.

“Do you—,” he began, when he got his breath back, “do you know how hard it was, keeping all the wolf stuff under wraps because I thought it would creep you out? And now you bring me this?”

“You didn’t ask!” Gabriel even looked embarrassed about it, cheeks tinted red, which shouldn’t be as adorable as it actually felt. “I didn’t— Besides, I wouldn’t have been weird about it, even if I was human. Werewolves are no big deal.”

Jack scoffed. “Says you. I almost killed you and then you saw me naked.”

“You wouldn’t have killed me, don’t oversell yourself. I blocked you easily, and after you recovered from the surprise, you were basically a puppy, following me around.” Jack winced. He didn’t remember that part. “Besides, I suspected your clothes wouldn’t magically grow back when you went back to human, so I put the blanket on you while you were still a wolf. Your dignity is safe with me, don’t worry.”

His ears were aflame. “Still! It’s freaky!” He couldn’t believe he’d somehow found himself in a position where he was forced to argue that he _was_ , in fact, a freaky monster, but life just seemed to like throwing curveballs at him.

“Try having an alien live in your body, keeping a running commentary, and then you tell me about big deals.”

Jack’s smile faded. “Is that what you are?” He asked, softly. He didn’t mean to come off inquisitive, or rude. The alley Gabriel had opened with that ‘ _I like you’_ still felt thrilling and unreal, he wasn’t sure where they stood. He wouldn’t want to prob around too much and strike a chord.

“We are… well, Reaper is a symbiote. He inhabits my body and is, most often, a general pain in the ass.” He paused. “ _Am not,”_ came the gravelly voice from his throat. “You are, you big drama queen.”

“I see.”

“I’ve heard about werewolves before, but not this. Nothing like this. So sorry if I wasn’t scared of the big bad wolf, but thought you might get a bit creeped out about this.” He pointed at himself. “It was hard, keeping Reaper from our conversations. He _did_ have a few choice words on how I felt about you, but I wanted to tell you myself. So, this is the whole package you’ve just invited home.” He shrugged. “If you still want to—"

“Jesus, Gabriel. Of course I want to.”

“Really?”

The food sat on the table, cold and untouched, as he got up and crossed the distance between them. “I really like you, too.”

Their first kiss was slow and tentative. Jack’s heart was hammering against his ribs, deafening to his own ears, enough that he began to think Gabriel would be able to feel it too. His ears, if he focused, could catch the man’s own heartbeat, jackrabbiting too. The thought alone made his toes curl. The giddiness and excitement were making him dizzy, but he simply could not stop kissing him. Everything —the soft plushness of his lips, the hint of beard against his own stubble, his big hands cupping his cheeks—felt like uncharted land, and Jack wanted to take his sweet time exploring each and every corner. There’d be time, though.

There’d be time. Now was _that_ an amazing thought.

His stomach grumbled again, more insistently this time. He wanted to keep kissing Gabriel, but he could feel the man was struggling to keep himself from smiling. He kissed the corners of his mouth before parting.

“Sorry. Lots of calories burnt yesterday.”

“I can tell. Will that be enough?” Jack sent him a pitiful glare, and Gabriel cracked up. “Alright, I’ll make more.”

Jack ate half his fridge’s reserves. Gabriel was staring at him, lovesick expression in his eyes, and it was getting increasingly hard to focus on his meal when Gabriel’s lips were right there. He was about to say something, but a yawn creeped up on him.

“Sleepy?” Gabriel asked.

“God, yes. I usually sleep like a log the whole day after a full moon. But you were here, and I didn’t want to leave stuff unresolved.”

“What a subtle way to kick me out,” Gabriel complained, but there was humor in his voice. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Stay,” Jack blurted before his brain could catch up. “Please.” Gabriel feigned to think about it, even when his smile betrayed him. “You look like you could use the sleep, anyway.”

“No shit. I had to stay awake all night, taking care of a very affectionate wolf-turned-lapdog.” Jack blushed. “It was adorable, though. I’m not complaining.”

“Will you stay, then?”

“Depends. Will I get cuddles?”

“Please, yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Some additional notes!  
> \- The reason Gabriel left his past job is because of the same incident that led to Reaper inhabiting his body. Working on a case about corporate espionage at a high-tech company, late at night in the building, an accident… (insert standard supervillain origin story)  
> \- Angela actually swears a lot more than Jack gives her credit for. He simply doesn’t understand German.


End file.
